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(1) Fair dealing with a work for the purposes of criticism or review, of that or another work or of a performance of a work, does not infringe copyright in the work if such fair dealing is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement.

Add in this line:

(1) Fair dealing with a work for the purposes of criticism or review, of that or another work or of a performance of a work, does not infringe copyright in the work if such fair dealing is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement, or if the purpose is for parody or satire.

Thanks! I knew this was possible, but could never figure out how for some reason, so have on one or two occasions resorted to e-mailing the PDF to my Gmail account when it wasn't already cached by Google.

Yeah this greatly annoys me. I wanted to release this by mix and mashing the video of the Skynet debate however I could have been held in contenpt of parliament for using parliamentary footage! I think this is nuts. It's not an old hangover and was actually introduced only a few years back.

Actually, I'm not sure I agree 100% on this, for you guys as MP's, the debating chamber is your place of work. I know that I'm not always at my most photogenic if I'm distracted at my place of work, and I would be uncomfortable if footage of me lounging on my chair or whatever was turned into a poster.

I would be keen for anything said officially in the house to be fair game, but not what's happening on the back benches.

Unless things have changed since I last looked at this issue (June this year), then there is no absolute requirement to obtain consent for video surveillance of employees whilst at work.

The Privacy Commissioner has issued some guidance suggesting that consent will generally be required unless there is good reason. But there has been some later case law that suggests that video camera footage isn't covered by the 'collection' principles in the Privacy Act at all.

Basically, it's all a bit unclear. Employment law and the duty of good faith may come into it, but I haven't heard that argued anywhere.

As to the use of broadcast footage of the House, I stand to be corrected but I don't think that content is copyrighted (just like Parliamentary publications are not copyrighted). So any restrictions or exemptions to its use don't arise under the Copyright Act.

Instead, the restrictions are in the Standing Orders (Appendix D), which contains a specific prohibition on use for "satire, ridicule or denigration" (r 1(2)(b)).

So no, I don't think this would help if you wanted to use Parliament TV footage for satire.

Thanks. We've still got a way to go on econimic things though. Namely where the hell we're going to get money for all the things we promise while halting anything economicly sound. Ditching the $5 billion the country makes on fossil fuels is sure to put a huge spanner in the works too.

I'm not sure where the AMA is, but I have to run so here's my question:

If a person walks into a dairy and gets caught stealing a candy bar, they're charged with a civil penalty, tried and punished by the justice system, and sent on their way. Yet if someone "steals" a song with a demonstrable market value of $2 or less, the penalty is a protracted court battle resulting in the loss of Internet and a substantial fine. To summarize:

Why is there a disparity at all? The penalty does not match the crime - an illegally downloaded song or movie should be treated as any other provable case of shoplifting. Anything less is just setting a massive double standard that favours large companies that peddle digital copies of a product that is not actually lost.

Yes, agree it's not fair. even worse under the current law you could get fined up to $15,000 for infringing copyright on a product that isnt even avaliable. I suggested there should be a $0 fine for media not avaliable in NZ to act as an incentive to actually provide content to Kiwis faster than currently. Like the Hurt Locker had won the academy award yet we still couldn't legally purchase it in NZ.

This is good to know. I'm referring to the people that see a song available on a market like iTunes, decide it's not worth the $2 price tag, then download it on a torrent site because they can. While I don't see this as honorable in any way, I feel the punishment is blown out of proportion.

I purchase movies or music legally online whenever possible, but my options in New Zealand are severely limited. I cannot download MP3's or movies from the Amazon online store, and various movies, music, and TV shows are never made available on iTunes. I've actually emailed Amazon's customer service with my concerns:

I love the Amazon MP3 store, and please do not take this as a criticism of your service, but is there any technical reason that I cannot download an MP3 from your store when located outside of the United States? I am puzzled as to why I am unable to download an MP3 from your store while located in another country. I am a US citizen and willing to pay you with US currency on a US credit card, but any time I try to make a purchase I'm informed that you will not sell it to me. I own 2 Android phones with the Amazon MP3 Store preloaded on both of them, but with the restriction in international downloading I'm afraid they're just wasted storage space.

Several, if not all, of your competitors recognize that at the end of the day, they're selling digital copies of something on the Internet with virtually zero overhead. There is no inventory to concern yourself with, and it's a product that you pay virtually nothing to deliver. Transmitting a file from your servers or CDN to an international computer does not cost you anymore than delivering to a residential home in the United States. New Zealanders enjoy American music just as much as Americans do, so why go out of your way to restrict their ability to purchase it?

Again, I love the Amazon store and hope you continue to do awesome things with it. I used it frequently when I lived in the United States and I would love to continue giving you money to use it, but until you remove this arbitrary rule I will be forced to purchase all of my music from Apple, who does not impose the same restrictions that you do but charges up to three times as much no matter where I am located.

This is the response I received:

Thank you for sending your comments about the availability of music from the Amazon MP3 Music Downloads store to US citizens staying outside US.

As required by our MP3 music providers, MP3 downloads on Amazon.com are currently only available to customers located in the United States. Our ability to offer music to you in MP3 format is limited by the rights granted to us by the record companies.

To purchase MP3 downloads from Amazon.com you must have a credit or debit card issued by a U.S. bank with a U.S. billing address, and you must be physically located in the U.S. at the time of purchase.

Please keep their response in mind when considering future legislation on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Hughes, for doing this AMA. The Greens have my vote!

Do you feel that creators of intellectual property have a responsibility to release media simultaneously worldwide? If our local IP creators had their copyrights ignored in e.g., the US because they were able to secure distribution channels locally before they could release it there, would you feel like they were getting a raw deal?

The only point that I can think of that a song could be further copied or used without limit whereas a candy bar is a you know, one use item. It still does not seem to back up the disparity at all in my mind.

It could be further copied, but unless you can prove it was transmitted to someone else that person should not be penalized for it. The penalty in that case ought to be the retail value times the number of people it was proven to transmit it to, perhaps with a cap of $15000. If those people pass it on, penalize them.

It doesn't matter how many times a person listens to that song, if $2 would otherwise give you unlimited use of it.

I have lost a significant amount of respect for copyright. I don't understand the mentality of a lot of the rightsholders, they aren't offering their goods for sale on the net, if they did, they would make a lot of money.

A good example of a great distribution service is one called "Steam". It's for games, and gives lots of great deals, and really offers a fantastic service!

I wish that kind of distribution would happen with movies and tv shows here in New Zealand.

Good points. I asked the Commerce Minister in parliament what he though of Netflicks and he said he didn't know what it was! I couldnt believe it - millions of dollars and probably 10,000s of person-hours went into the Skynet law yet he couldnt look at the wildly successful legal option in the US. International evidence shows its the most effective way to reduce infringements online.

I posted some questions above, but they have gotten a bit lost, so here they are:

1) As others have stated, what decides what is considered satire and parody?

2) Do you see NZ legalizing the back up of dvds you own for personal use/placing on electronic devices, like netbooks and tablet computer.

3) hypothetical situation here: You receive a copyright infringement notice for downloading Rihanna. You haven't actually downloaded the music, but somebody spoofed your ip address. How do you defend yourself? How do you prove you didn't download the music?
Further hypothetical situation: You receive two other copyright notices, due to someone spoofing your ip address to make it appear as if you are the one downloading. You are called before the copyright tribunal. How do you prove you did not download the music?

4) Recently, China has decided to ban incandescent lightbulbs to help reduce energy usage and help the environment. Do you see New Zealand doing this in the future?

5) Recently, the economic solvency of interest-free student loans has been called into question. It's quite expensive. Do you see NZ retaining interest free student loans? If not, do you feel that will encourage young kiwis to head to Australia?

6) There has been talk of the government passing a bill ensuring a substance must be proven safe to consume before being sold in NZ. Do the greens support the passing of this bill, and if it does pass what will this mean for the selling of things like alcohol and tobacco?

7) What is the benefit of selling off state assets?

8) Polls are putting the greens at 10-12%, and labour between 25% and 30%. Do you think, as the greens become more mainstream, that the green party could replace labour as the default "left-leaning" party?

9) Gay marriage has been discussed lately. Other than some peoples religious beliefs, what is the argument that keeps it illegal? Church and state are separate, so we are not a theocracy, so what is keeping the status quo?

10) Do you feel advancing gay civil rights is on the agenda for National?

I'll generalise the answer to being about invalidating any claims of data transfer, not defences of Fair Dealing.

There haven't been any defences yet so we can only speculate at the kind of evidence that would invalidate a data transfer claim but basically there are 3 areas in the chain of evidence leading to an account holder:

At the account holder's connection: It's important to log all network activity (e.g. NAT logs showing internal/external IP addresses and times) and present that data to the Copyright Tribunal to show that the allegation is false as the network activity didn't occur. Unfortunately most people have cheapy consumer-grade routers that are incapable of logging. Logging on computers themselves isn't as good because a hacked wifi router would bypass that logging. We (the CFF) estimate a compliance cost of about 1.5k to upgrade routers for logging, but as far as we know these business compliance costs of the law haven't been analysed.

At the ISP: Get the method that the ISP used to match an IP address to your account and verify the process and data. See if there was a mistake made. In our submission we said that these details should be included with the details of the copyright holder's allegation in order to establish the chain of evidence.

At the rights holder: Get the Tribunal to reveal the methods, data, and the source code of the accusing software. See whether there was a mistake made. E.g. Check for whether the times are synchronized to time servers, check the source code and get an expert to analyse it. There is a similar issue when people try to subpoena speed camera's source code: "The camera is more than a camera. It’s a computer. You have the right to question your accuser in court and your accuser is effectively this computer. You should have the right to know exactly how it is programmed."

These are all difficult, and potentially expensive things, but I would recommend trying them all in defence against a false allegation.

Is that the one that has something to do with Orcon? I've heard good things.

The thing I worry about with online distribution in NZ is that the territorial idiots who run these things will design some sort of silo system where you need separate subscriptions to different services depending on who owns the rights to the content you want - similar to the way you have to pay for different channel packages on Sky (particularly because Sky own the broadcasts rights to huge amounts of content in New Zealand).

Orcon provide unmetered downloads (which don't count toward your monthly download limit) from Steam and other sources. They don't have anything directly to do with Steam, though, and other ISPs are also welcome to cache Steam content.

“…it is possible to interpret P2P as a leisure form that fosters social inclusion, empowerment and distributive justice. This leaves the recording industry in the awkward position of seeking both to impose limitations on the functionality of computer exchange technology and to regulate participation in a mass popular cultural and leisure form."

Might be off-topic especially since legislators seem to always see it in terms of economics, but you're exactly right here– it's just as, if not more important to consider the social/cultural politics when it comes to this issue.

I get the feeling that you are right, and now that we have considerable IP in this country, it seems a bit remiss.

As one of those legislators, how will you bring it to the table?.... I guess I'm really asking what priority it will have for the Green party, I know it isn't in your top three, but is it in your top ten?

Probably minimal tbh. Perceptions of copyright are closely tied up with other intellectual property (patents & trademarks), which are all being increasingly attacked. I don't think most people draw much of a distinction between the three main legal protections of IP.

I's like to acknowledge the Creative Freedom Foundation who have done great work advocating for artists and who have been calling for this for years. I'd also like to thank Phillip Greatreux, my intern, who assisted with drafting the bill. Big ups!

In the Bill we go through some of the countries which have this protection. Australia added this a few years ago and in NZ our Government actually did a tonne of work on it, however National refused to progress it.

I'd also like to see the inclusion of fan fiction, fan art (traditional & graphics based) and fan 'mini-movies' (such as are frequently seen on youtube) These art forms provides major benefits for the original artists both in the form of free advertising, word-of-mouth recommendation of an artists work (much more powerful than recommendation by a paid advertising company) and mostly the maintenance of interest by fans in an artist. The latter being especially important during a time of recession where financial purchase of an artists' works often requires determination, time & saving, just check the 80's, our last major recession and era of the 'one-hit-wonder' to verify that.
This is recognised by most artists (one of my daughters fan fictions is followed by the original author and many authors & actors like to keep an eye on sites such as tumblr & fan fiction sites and reference such in interviews & the like).
This is also recognised by the industry who track such sites to keep an eye on what the fans are wanting, whether they plan to use that information in writing or simply allow debate to thrive and maintain interest (an example is the current debate raging between fans, the actors and the industry as to whether Sherlock Holmes & Watson are a 'couple' in the UK production of the series "Sherlock").
Such sites also benefit us at large as they form the melting pots & training grounds of our next generation of artists.
They benefit the artists, they benefit the industry and they benefit us. It is about time that, provided they are not used for commercial gain, such art forms are made legal.

hey guys stoked for the oportunity to engage with your comments and questions tonight. I have to go now but will cruise by tomorrow to answer any comments that come in this evening. Thanks for the great space and constructive comments to have a serious discussion.

As an aside, irregardless who you will vote for, make sure you get on the roll and vote. Yesterday I launched a new website called Hey Kiwi with the boys from the Phoenix Foundation where you can enroll and score free NZ music tracks. You can also download tracks if you pass it on to your mates.

(pro tip: include the http:// prefix on links to make them clickable, eg http://www.heykiwi.org.nz - i think the latest versions of Firefox, if not the other browsers as well, have started losing the prefix altogether so they don't copy across any more)

My guess would be the courts. There should be some attempt at a definition in the legislation though to guide them and the provision should also address where there isn't genuine parody but what is done actually amounts to commercial exploitation.

Pretty much this. The wording in the legislation above is pretty clear:

... or if the purpose is for parody or satire.

If you intended for it to be parody or satire, it is not copyright infringement, so the other party would have to somehow show that that was not genuinely your intention (it should generally be pretty obvious).

Hi Gareth, I tried to get this into the DomPost livechat today but no luck. Now that the Greens are officially a 'medium' party and seem to be growing steadily, do you think that it might be time to put up some serious electorate competition in at least a few electorates in 2014? Obviously the party vote will be the mainstay of the Greens for the foreseeable future, but an electorate seat or too would do a lot for your credibility with some types.

Good question. Actually I would be keen to see us contenesting electorates in future elections. This election however the message is clear - only party votes will see more Green MPs and good Green change in Parliament. Under MMP its the party votes that determine the make up of Parliament - so if you get 10% of party votes, you get 10% of seats.

Do you mean PV, not STV? (though PV is technically a special case of STV, for single-winner seats)

I would be interested in this. I would be very annoyed if I were an Ōhariu voter, I wanted Dunne out, and thus had to vote for the thoroughly uninspiring Charles Chauvel over the charming Mr Hughes. At least in my electorate I can vote with moderate freedom because it's a safe seat... even so I am torn between the Green and Labour candidates (Metira Turei and David Clark). I want to be able to cast my vote freely, not tactically.

Hi Gareth,
Sorry this is unrelated to the copyright change (which I fully support you with), feel free to refer me in the right direction if this isn't what you wanted to talk about.

I just wanted to know a little more about the Greens policy on stimulating Research and Development in sustainable (or green) energy and technology. I am about to finish my masters in molecular biology and am very interested in this field, especially in the case of biofuels.

I would like to know the Green parties stance on the use of GMO and genetic modification technology in the laboratory when it comes to the research and development of these green technologies. Would these approaches be encouraged or would we want to look for alternatives. If so, does the Green party have knowledge of any alternatives they would like to encourage.

We do support greater investment in R&D and I note comparatively we spend less than many similar nations. We think there is a growing green/clean-tech wave we are well placed to catch, but are lacking too because there is no economic vision. For example the renewable electricity sector is estimated to grow to $800 billion soon - and we could get a slice selling our expertise and know-how.

We support GE research however do not want transgenic organisims to be released into the environment unless safe. We support lab-based research. Organics, is at threat if we release GE plants or animals is a big earner (and has a bright future I think).

Jeanette Fitzsimons also wrote a Sustainable Biofuels Bill to ensure its use in NZ wasn't unsustainable, wasn't costing energy and wasn't competiting with food crops which I supported.

We support GE research however do not want transgenic organisims to be released into the environment unless safe.
We support lab-based research

I completely agree with this and I am very glad to hear it. Knowing that you guys support research and are open to using the technologies for the benefit of our country. It's my hope that evetually a solid set of guidelines for what will be deemed "safe" can be written up and put out so that we, as scientists, have something to work towards in terms of final products.

I might just say what I'm sure Gareth won't... if you're an Ohariu voter then there are strategic options for your candidate vote involving a certain National Party coalition partner and the candidate that came close to unseating him in 2008.

Gareth actually did say it elsewhere: Green MPs in general, including himself, are not seeking electorate votes. They don't need them, as they're highly unlikely to get more electorate seats than their party vote would give them, so any electorate seats just take away from their party list seats.

Given that minor copyright offenses are only rarely pursued by police in New Zealand, is it appropriate to address the issue piecemeal with such amendments, or would it be better to change the whole act in one fell swoop?

On the Police issue, remember that copyright infringement is, by and large, not a crime (there are a few criminal provisions, but they're for large-scale commercial infringement). Generally copyright infringement is a civil matter, so it's up to rights holders to pursue private claims against an infringer. The kind of activity that Gareth's amendment targets would probably never attract Police attention.

I think the main thing that Gareth alludes to with this particular issue is that people who have created pieces of satire/parody are sometimes threatened with legal action and told to remove it. They may feel like they have to/aren't safe in their position.

For example telecom advertisements that have been edited/parodied criticizing their service have been challenged and removed from youtube a lot.

While he mentions opposition to a lot of the skynet changes those affect other parts of the Act etc. and would be handled in a different piece of legislation really.

Gareth- I remember glaring angrily at my TV screen when the proposed deep sea drilling was being discussed during question time and you were asking the National spokesman about what guarantees were in place to prevent a repeat of the Deepwater Horizon spill in NZ waters. I didn't hear a single straight answer to your questions, or anything that reassured me that NZ had any better safety than the US.

Given what we've seen of the Rena response, do you have any faith that we could drill for deep sea oil without risking a disaster on an epic scale?

Yeah, licensing of content is really what it comes down to. Consumers want a wide range of media, and to legally provide that, any service must get arrangements with all the publishers of said media, and many publishers are resisting using electronic distribution for fear it will cut into their profits or put them out of business, or simply slow to pick it up as a channel of distribution. (Anyone spot the irony?)

1) As others have stated, what decides what is considered satire and parody?

2) Do you see NZ legalizing the back up of dvds you own for personal use/placing on electronic devices, like netbooks and tablet computer.

3) hypothetical situation here: You receive a copyright infringement notice for downloading Rihanna. You haven't actually downloaded the music, but somebody spoofed your ip address. How do you defend yourself? How do you prove you didn't download the music?

Further hypothetical situation: You receive two other copyright notices, due to someone spoofing your ip address to make it appear as if you are the one downloading. You are called before the copyright tribunal. How do you prove you did not download the music?

4) Recently, China has decided to ban incandescent lightbulbs to help reduce energy usage and help the environment. Do you see New Zealand doing this in the future?

5) Recently, the economic solvency of interest-free student loans has been called into question. It's quite expensive. Do you see NZ retaining interest free student loans? If not, do you feel that will encourage young kiwis to head to Australia?

6) There has been talk of the government passing a bill ensuring a substance must be proven safe to consume before being sold in NZ. Do the greens support the passing of this bill, and if it does pass what will this mean for the selling of things like alcohol and tobacco?

7) What is the benefit of selling off state assets?

8) Polls are putting the greens at 10-12%, and labour between 25% and 30%. Do you think, as the greens become more mainstream, that the green party could replace labour as the default "left-leaning" party?

9) Gay marriage has been discussed lately. Other than some peoples religious beliefs, what is the argument that keeps it illegal? Church and state are separate, so we are not a theocracy, so what is keeping the status quo?

10) Do you feel advancing gay civil rights is on the agenda for National?

All of these are good questions, but I feel that asking his opinion on other parties and their policies (Q8 & 10) isn't really all that important. He should be giving us information on his policies, not make guesses at the policies of other parties.

6) There has been talk of the government passing a bill ensuring a substance must be proven safe to consume before being sold in NZ. Do the greens support the passing of this bill, and, if it does pass, how long until cigarettes and alcohol are banned in New Zealand, due to the massive amount of death both directly cause?

It seems to me that asking something more like, "what will this mean for things like alcohol and tobacco" would be a more worthy question, as he probably couldn't give you much more of an answer than a wild guess. It also depends highly on how it's implemented.

EDIT: Gareth, are you able to make any comments on the above questions?

6) There has been talk of the government passing a bill ensuring a substance must be proven safe to consume before being sold in NZ. Do the greens support the passing of this bill, and if it does pass what will this mean for the selling of things like alcohol and tobacco?

Im in two minds over GST. On one hand it acts as an incentive to reduce consumption (good green principle) yet is also regressive and impacts those on lower income levels most who spend a higher proportion of their income on basics. Do you think it should be lowered back to 12.5%

I'm also of two minds about it, to be honest I do feel it impacts lower income household unfairly, but I agree about reducing consumption, what bought it up was articles from Metiria Turei and Russell Norman in the past suggesting that the change was counter to Green policy, but changing it back was notably missing in the 'Mind the Gap' deal. I would like to know for the sake of a continuing argument with a friend, thank you for the opportunity to ask.

As a follow up question: is there are a specific obstacle for the Greens hosting a forum for non-members? I imagine there'd be a fair amount of troll and spam posts there that we don't really get in the members forum (most people won't want to pay to support a cause they're trying to abuse), but that wouldn't take away its value.

Why should I be concerned about the lack of satire protection? Do you consider this to be an issue of itself, or is your intent here to chip away at the copyright law? I'm not aware of any satirists who have been silenced due to copyright laws so it seems that this legislation is an answer to a question never asked. Am I wrong in thinking that this doesn't happen, or does this legislation have importance I'm missing?

Mine would have to be Hittler/Downfalls. The Rick Gyles (ACT candidate one was classic).
Politically the Telecon ad from a few years back was a great example of social comment through satire yet was removed under copyright. Likewise Greenpeace has been challenged with reccently in regards to a Sealord campaign.

Would the greens consider pushing an bill or amendment bill banning shark finning in New Zealand waters and require all fish caught in New Zealand waters either be landed in New Zealand or have a representative of fisheries NZ to monitor catch.

This will be my third election (24 years old) I'll be voting greens for the first time as the policies you've announced will benefit me and everyone in the long term and the short term.

Well he has my vote, Seems to be the only person in parliament that has any idea what a download or a Reddit is.
Oh yeah and we need to clear out the "old boys club" and get some young blood in positions of power.

You've connected with me because you're holding an iPad and that is a thing that is popular with the young culture that I am a part of. (GET IT CONNECTED!?! HUH HUH. Some fucking technology humour right there).

On a more serious note, how would you define "fair dealing". What constitutes 'fair' under these circumstances and who is the body that deems whether the dealing was indeed fair.

Good questions. Ultimately its the courts. However because we don't have these protections most parodies or satires (be it a Hittler/downfall parody or whatever) are just taken down because many people dont have confidence they could defend themselves in court.

hey, because Im only asking for party votes. It's a real positive of MMP - local MPs and list MPs who focus on issue constituencies not just geographic ones.

In Ohariu I am talking to people when I door knock or attend events about local poverty, public service cuts, the need to improve the poor health of the local streams and the urgent need for better public transport.

Is there a particular piece of satire and parody in a New Zealand context you would hate to see stung with being 'copyright infringement' ?

How do you think this might apply to commercial advertising or situations where money is involved that take a comedic or parody form?
I.e.: One company makes fun of another companies products very close to their 'copyright' and parodies it in favor of their own product?

Mine would have to be Hittler/Downfalls. The Rick Gyles (ACT candidate one was classic).

Politically the Telecon ad from a few years back was a great example of social comment through satire yet was removed under copyright. Likewise Greenpeace has been challenged with reccently in regards to a Sealord campaign.

Good question re companies. I think it would be different many have registered trademarks etc and arent really in the business of public comment.

"Have you considered defining parody or satire or examined how courts have interpreted it in other jurisdictions? How do you think it might fare leaving the 'old white male judges' of our society to interpret whats funny and hip?"

Smart flatmate! It's a good point and something that would be worthy to explore in a select committee. If the bill passed its first reading we could invite public submissions and study how it works overseas. Im not sure if we would need to define it, given they are well known public terms but it may make sense to.

On the whole judges are fair but their guidelines are the laws that MPs draft - so it's the legislation that's vital to get right.

This all makes complete sense now. I was watching the news the other night and saw some Green MP snorkeling with his goorky looking son with a gormless buck toothed smile who keep staring into the camera. Only thing is, his son looked nothing like him and why had his dad taken him to swim with sharks. Now I find out his kid is actually Gareth Hughes. I can't wait till your campaigning is over and you no longer have the need to come on reddit.

WOW, who would have thought a negative comment about a green MP would attract so many down votes. But lets be honest, he looks young, he looks funny and he has never contributed to anything on reddit that isn't related to him wanting votes. He's a politician, so in my book, fair game. The day he posts an image of a made up facebook conversation, something in gonewild or a pic of his cute cat sleeping on his laptop keyboard he might accepted by me as a redditor . Until then, scumbag politician wanting votes.

Yeah... I would've downvoted you just as happily if you said this about Rodney Hide, John Key, the queen or George Bush.

If you'd made comments about his policies, party or such, based on facts, then sure, or if you'd made a comment on something he'd done as an MP. Instead you just disregarded all of that and made an attack directly on him, that's pretty shit really.

He's a public figure he would be foolish to use an account explicitly stating who he is to do anything but talk politics.

The fact he even knows what reddit is, is a big improvement on the vast majority of politicians and the knowledge and sense he showed during the recent copyright debate made me look at his party as a whole more closely rather than just writing them off as crazy hippies as most people do.

John Banks shook my hand in Mt Eden yesterday and introduced himself as 'Banksy'. Does he do that usually? Fuck no. Was I impressed he knew how to get out of his Bentley and walk? - FUCK NO! It's election year mate, don't be fooled. All politicians are self serving wankers. The greens may think they are doing well, but really Labour are so embarrassingly bad I'd be tempted to vote for them as well. The Greens are the fat chick at a party at 2am, there's a chance for them to score now.

If Banks was able to find his way to reddit I'd agree entirely but I'd argue there is a difference between the traditional glad handing routine and coming here, most because glad handing exposes you to more people directly.

Regardless of exposure or knowledge of technology, Hughes is here to get votes, he has invited non redditors here to astroturf him and the Greens and he will leave as soon as the votes are in. He is not a redditor, and it makes me a little sick in my mouth seeing redditors fawn over him like he is a god because he uses reddit.

Of course he is here to get votes, he's a politician. I don't think he's god, I do however find it refreshing to find a politician who has shown both a willingness to try and understand technology(and attempt to apply at least moderately sensible laws to it) and the ability and desire to use that same technology.

Personally, I don't agree with a lot of the his party's policy. I will vote for them though because as a minor partner in a coalition a lot of the policies I disagree with are unlikely to make it into law.

Realistically though the whole election is just one big sideshow to the Goff vs Key popularity contest.